


Finding A Meaning

by Justabitofeverything



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - High School, Cancer, Cutting, Depression, Explicit Language, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Self-Acceptance, Self-Harm, Traveling, im mildly tired lets do this thing, possible triggering events
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-06-09 16:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6914233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justabitofeverything/pseuds/Justabitofeverything
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean struggles with depression and self-harm after he loses his mother to a house fire. John (his father) takes up a job across country at a family friend's auto shop. After moving across country and losing the little friends he had before Dean sees hope in this town in the form of Castiel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is my first fic to be published here so wish me luck. I will try to update as often as possible. Also i am editing this by myself so I'm sorry ahead of time for sucky spelling and grammar skills.

Dean sets down the blade he was drawing with. His right thigh is not doing too well after tonight’s events and he decides to clean up with a quick shower. The hot water stings a little but not too bad. Looking back he doesn’t remember why he even started cutting. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time and now Dean sees no reason to stop. At first Dean wanted to avoid going deep enough to leave scars but not too soon after he started caring less and less. Now his upper thighs are covered in lines of a losing war. Luckily boys wearing pants all year isn’t something completely out of the ordinary. 

~~

It’s the middle of junior year and Dean is moving across country to a small town in Maine because, of a new job his dad got. Now because of this Dean has to say goodbye to Charlie and Luci. Probably the only people who were nice enough to stick around or even talk to him. Even known they weren’t very close he considered them friends since they talked at lunch and went out to the roadhouse a few times. But never did much outside of that. This left Dean to be alone most of the time. He didn’t mind that though. Maybe he even preferred being alone because with more people you get more drama and more secrets.

Sam all though was very excited for the move because he will be able to meet new people and be closer to a family friend Bobby. Bobby was there for the Winchesters after they lost Mary. But he moved out to Maine. We don’t really know why but he got himself an auto shop and has been fairly happy since. By closer I mean a lot closer. They are going to go live with him because John doesn’t have the money to buy a house or much of anything to keep them going. John was fired from his old job for showing up late or not at all too many times all because he was too hungover or drunk to work. Bobby offered him a job if he got his act together. John of course took the job but with no promises of fighting his alcoholism. 

~~

After flying across country for about five hours they made it to Maine. Their first stop after getting there was going to Bobby’s shop/house because where else would they go. Dean and Sam would start going to school tomorrow. Sam was looking forward to meeting the new people and seeing if their old school was ahead of this one or not. Dean on the other hand was just trying to get through today and making it to tomorrow. 

Dean unpacked and neatly put away his clothes which was 80% flannels. When did he even get this many flannels? Who needs this many flannels in their life time? Then he went to bed in hopes that maybe tomorrow won’t be too bad. It’s a new school therefore a new start. Maybe this time he will do better.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay two chapters in one day. This one is much longer than the other one so. Also tell me how I'm doing. :)

Waking up for school is always a hassle. Getting up at the crack of dawn to go somewhere you hate with a bunch of kids who hate each other is totally not a good reason to get up in the morning. This applies even more so when you are going to have to meet a bunch of new people and teachers. This isn’t going to be an easy day. The thought of taking a bit of alcohol with him crosses Dean’s mind but the thought isn’t acted upon.

 

Dean drove Sam to school with him. But when they got there they were both equally lost. After wondering around for 15 minutes they finally found the main office. Damn this school is big. “Hi, how may I help you?” the lady at the front desk says.

 

“Hi, um… We need our class schedules,” Dean says “I’m Dean and this is my brother Sam Winchester.”

 

“Ah okay here let me print them out for you and you will be on your way,” She said a little too nicely and flashed a smile. The school is a fairly large building. There are two floors of maze like hallways. God only knows the way through this place “Okay here you go Dean,” She says reaching out a piece of paper “And you Sam,” She continues with another paper “You can follow the room numbers to your classrooms. Also your locker numbers and combos are on the sheet,” 

 

“Okay thank you,” The brothers said at the same time. As soon as they left the office it was every man for themselves. Dean walked around for a little over 20 minutes when he found that his locker was right next to his first period class. This was a lucky turn of events. After unpacking his books into his locker he walked into English. 

 

When Dean walked into English and was welcomed by a bunch of kids suddenly turning their heads and someone in the middle of presenting just staring at him. This was not a good start to the school year. Dean sat down in hopes of not making it worse and maybe the kid can continue her presentation but instead the teacher just says “Oh hi, class this is our new student Dean Winchester.” Then the class just echoed an awkward ‘Hi Dean’. After that the poor girl continued her presentation that seemed to be on why one book was better than another one. It was hard to tell since she was on the last slide when he came in. The class continued with several more presentations which meant that Dean didn’t have to do anything all class. 

~~~~  
After English he went into math which also started with the ‘class this is dean Winchester’ and the class saying ‘hiiii deannnn’. Luckily he has all his classes today so he won’t have to worry about doing this again. 

 

Dean decided to sit in the back of the class because then he won’t be too close to the teacher and get less social interaction in the back. No one really talked to him and he just took some notes and zoned out the other half of the class. 

~~~~

After math was History. Sadly in this class he had to sit at a table group. The teacher decided to sit him in a group with three other people. “Okay today I will be handing out a reading packet and 10 questions on the back. I want you to work as a group, I’m looking at you Charlie,” There were a few giggles around the room and the teacher continued “After you’re done you may free read or do homework for other classes. Get to work,” The history teacher explained. Dean looked around his group to find everyone looking right back at him.

 

“Dean, do you want to read first?” said the kid across from him. He had black scruffy hair and ocean blue eyes, inhuman blue eyes actually was that a sky blue or… “Dean, do you want to read first?” he said again more rushed.

 

“Uh… yeah sure,” Dean said quickly and looked down to see a packet on WWI. In is old school they finished studying WWI a long time ago. He read the paragraph as clearly as possible but for some reason whenever he reads out loud he stumbles over his words making him sound like a lousy reader. But when the blue eyed kid read he sounded like he did it for a living. Every word was clear as day and neatly said. The reading went around the circle of kids until they finished the reading and went onto the questions. Everyone did the questions by themselves which Dean was pretty sure that was the only the teacher wanted them to actually work together on. 

 

On his way out he was stopped by the black haired kid. “Hey Dean, what’s your next class?” He asked.

 

“Oh I have science next,” Dean said barely over a whisper.

 

“Me too want to walk there together,” He said kind of nervously “I can show you the way.”

 

“Okay thanks I guess,” Dean says kind of shakily. They both walk to the class and good thing this kid was with him because it would have taken Dean forever to find the science wing. When they got to the class Dean sat in the back and Mr. Blue eyes sat right next to him. “I feel weird for waiting this long to ask but, what’s your name?” Dean says.

 

“Oh it’s Castiel, and can I see your schedule maybe I can help you find more of your classes.” Castiel says nicely. “Oh and you can call me Cas.”

 

“Okay thanks Cas,” Dean says and flashes a smile. Castiel, what kind of name is that. Either his parents hate him or they are super religious… maybe a bit of both? 

 

“Oh we have quite a few classes together I can lead you to most of them,” Cas says. 

 

“Okay thank you for the help it really means a lot,” Dean smiles, like actually smiles, well half smile but that’s still more than he’s done in a while. 

 

~~~~

 

The school day continues with Castiel leading Dean to assorted classes and sitting with him at lunch. A bit of chatter and Dean met a few of Cas’s friends. The people seem really open and welcoming to Dean which is a huge step in the right direction. After school Dean and Sam met up in the parking lot and on the ride home Sam explained his day with every detail. Dean listened to every word and even told a little about his day which surprised the both of them. They got home and continued their evening routines. Dean didn’t even think of picking up the blade before getting into the shower.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey sorry about the wait. Finals and homework was keeping me busy. (Trigger warning)

Dean woke up the next morning and was mildly excited for the day to come. He was looking forward to see Castiel in class and talk to him. This was the first time he looked forward to school in a while. But he still had the self-harm cravings and suicidal thoughts whispering in the back of his head.

He got dressed, brushed his teeth and ran his fingers through his hair. After waiting a little for his brother to join him in the seat next to him they were on their way to high school. On the way there Dean even threw in some comments in between Sam’s stories. Sam even noticed the mood change. “Make any friends yesterday?” Sam asked.

“Just another kid to talk to I guess. He seems pretty cool,” Dean relied keeping any information to himself.

“Oh really? What’s his name?” Sam pushed for some details.

“Cas…I mean Castiel he um, Cas is his nickname,” Dean stuttered. Why was he so nervous to talk about Cas anyway he was just another guy trying to help Dean through his first day. Sure he was nice conversation but maybe Dean shouldn’t get too touchy feely yet maybe Cas wanted to be nice but doesn’t want to take that step into ‘Friendship’. 

“He sounds pretty cool,” Sam said releasing the stress he was putting on his brother and decided to drop it. 

They got to school not too long after that conversation and both walked to different ends to get to the correct classrooms. When he walked into English he discovered that Cas was sitting in the middle of class working in a notebook. Dean happily took the seat next to him and looked over onto what he was doing. “Whattcha got there?” Dean asked.

“Oh hey Dean, I’m just writing about a trip I took recently. My family and I do a lot of traveling. I actually really like seeing all the new places. Sometime I hope to go to Europe or Japan,” Cas said and smiled up at Dean.

“I’ve never really traveled much of anywhere, outside of the move. My dad works in an auto shop and we don’t really have the money to do much of anything,” Dean replied. Sammy and he have never actually gone anywhere. Outside of that one time they went to Disney world in Florida and his dad snuck alcohol in and got them kicked out. 

Class started and the teacher went on about some book report. Castiel continued working on his writing and every so often he would look up. His eyes were unnaturally blue and those black wispy locks. Dean shook his eyes off of Castiel. He was just a friend. Dean isn’t used to someone being nice to him it has been so long. That’s it, Cas is just being so nice and Dean isn’t used to it, that’s why he was so excited to see him and feels so happy in his presence. Dean looked back up at the board trying to keep his gaze off of Castiel. 

~~~~

Dean continued with his school day by fighting his thoughts and trying to focus on something other than Castiel’s sweater and roundish face and everything that made Cas, Cas. He was able to take some notes in some classes. He sat with Castiel during lunch again. “Maybe we should do something tomorrow after school,” Castiel said between bites.

“Why? What’s tomorrow?” Dean said looking at his thumbs.

“It’s Friday, maybe we should go to this diner I know or just hangout somewhere,” Cas said excitedly.

“Um, sure I’ve never really done much with others outside of school so whatever you’re down with I’ll join,” Dean replied unsure if he was revealing too much.

“Ok maybe I’ll think of something,” Cas said and continued at his meal. They walked to their next few classes together and talked about assorted things that didn’t really matter but the continuous conversation struck a cord in Dean. But at the same time Dean was trying to be cautious because he had the feeling maybe Cas was using him for his own personal gain.

~~~~

After school Dean and Sam drove home. As soon as he walked through the door Dean decided to do his homework and maybe grab a snack since he didn’t have lunch. Doing homework took him all the way to dinner, and he even had some to do after dinner. He finally finished the unnecessary amount of homework and decided to shower.

He stepped into the bathroom and started the water to warm up. He took off his clothes and looked in the mirror. The sight of scars on his upper thighs and hips were there. He actually missed the feeling, the sound, and the look of the blade on his skin. He took it out of his hiding spot and rinsed it a little. He sat down on the toilet seat and ran the blade over his upper leg. The pinch was there then gone and some blood began beading at the scrape. His repeated this a few times before stepping into the shower. The hot rain washed over his new wounds. This made a faint stinging feeling and turned the water a light pink. The bleeding stopped by the time he got out. Dean hid his blades and went to bed, still feeling the numbness emotions and the slight ache in his legs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to update more sorry about that.


End file.
